Unworthy of trust

Air board ignored warning signs on controversial, costly proposals

For decades, the California Coastal Commission has been run by extremists with an aversion to private property rights. Now, a similar extremism has infected the California Air Resources Board. That is the only conclusion to draw from the air board's recent adoption of sweeping rules forcing a switch to cleaner but costlier types of energy and imposing costly new restrictions on vehicles using diesel fuel. On both measures, there were huge warning signs about the proposals – red flags board members blithely ignored.

The first measure – the “Scoping Plan” to implement a 2006 law meant to reduce the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming – prompted scathing criticism from prominent economists hired to evaluate its claim that it would yield broad economic gains. Two said the air board's study appeared to have been written to justify the plan, not evaluate it.

The handling of the second measure was even more outrageous. Last month, James E. Enstrom, an epidemiologist with UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, began looking into the credentials of those responsible for the diesel study. Enstrom was motivated by dismay over the study's slapdash quality and its omission of crucial evidence. He found that the study's lead author and coordinator, air board scientist Hien Tran, did not have the degree he claimed – a doctorate in statistics from the University of California Davis.

Before the vote on the diesel regulations, Enstrom wrote the air board about his discovery, and told three members face-to-face.

And no one did a thing. Instead of starting from scratch – or at least postponing approval until an internal investigation was completed – the air board adopted sweeping rules based on work by someone who lied about his credentials.

With the air board – as with the Coastal Commission – zealotry comes before honesty, fairness and common sense.

As for Tran, the air board only began an internal investigation into his background after the Union-Tribune's inquiries. For all the board cared, Tran could have been a junior high dropout – so long as his “findings” reinforced its extreme views.